Wednesday, February 07, 2007

"Tracy!"

Okay, I don't mean to obsess on the Wonder Woman movie, but when a man of my stripe lies in bed at night thinking about what he'd do with Wonder Woman, I think it's culturally significant.

Regardless of what one does with her character, there is one sure way to ensure the success of the film: the right villain. Thus, let us a look for a moment at Wonder Woman foes like Dr. Psycho, the Cheetah, Ares, the Silver Swan, the Yellow Peri, Paula Van Gunther, and Giganta.

And then tell them to sit this one out.

It's obvious who needs to be the villain in this film. Wonder Woman's most fabulous foe, the reason god put Bob Kanigher on earth, DC's answer to Dr. Doom:

I mean, really; must I spell things like this out for Hollywood, or what?

There are three steps to box-office boffo for WW The Movie:

Use Dr. Domino as the villain.

Have him, at some point, launch a missile at Manhattan (that'll get Marvel fans to the theaters).

Cast the right voice as Dr. Domino.

Uh-oh. I need help on this one. Not just anyone can be the voice of Dr. Domino. I know this first-hand, because this very panel was in last year's "Dramatic Reading Contest" at Big Monkey. And when they cast that Person From TV With the Whiny-Snarky Voice as Dr. Doom, it didn't help the FF movie (which was still fabulous, because Marvel knows better than to take its film project pretentiously seriously; that's for their comics).

Well, first off, I must disagree with your assessment of the FF movie which was pure drivel. I certainly didn't think it was true to the comic. The story was dumb and often gratuitous. And the product placement was distracting in the extreme.

Now Elektra, THERE's an unjustly maligned movie.

But the voice of Dr. Domino? May I suggest Eddie Murphy? That way he can play everyone else in the movie too (solves all your casting problems).

Hmm. Coombs is certainly very high on the List of Evil Voices. Still, like Warner's, his is a kind of dry voice. I'm imagining less of a 'voice that makes you want a drink' and more 'voice that makes you want to cover your ears'.

Lamar? Heh. Nice idea. He does like comics and can certainly be booming when he wants to be.

Remember, this is someone who will throw his arms up in the air and shout "You've just doomed the Amazon and New York!", as if he were a gameshow host.

If you're looking for a deep voiced actor how about Clancy Brown, Tony Todd, or Keith David? All great actors with deep voices and experience playing scary SOBs. And while I'm not sure about the first two, I know David has a fantastic maniacal laugh.

Personally I would love to see a scene where Wonder Woman, Steve Trevor, and Etta Candy are at IDC Headquarters or wherever they work out of in the movie, and the intruder alarm goes off. WW runs to the monitor screen and sees Dr. Domino's minions in their dotted sweatshirts storming the place, and cries out for Steve to seal the entrance.

For the record, I prefer David Warner's "Time After Time" co-star Malcolm McDowell as my preferred Voice of Evil, since McDowell gives you a much wilder and icier brand of evil.

But for the magnificent Dr. Domino?

1.) Frank Welker doing his Megatron voice - A proper mix of authority, menace, power, but with a hint of loony fanatacism. I like the metallic gravel quality to the voice as well. It seems like there should be something "wet" or scraping about Domino's voice.

2.) Michael Dorn - Deeper and bassier than Welker, with a pleasing wetness and air of menace. Worf was all about adding a touch of exuberance to the borderline-bland Next Generation crew, and now he could cut loose further. And that laugh--! Surely the man went to Villain Academy as well as Starfleet Academy.